Turbulence at 300000 feet!

I had no idea a '73 could cruise at 300000 feet! All kidding aside, a flight attendant was severely injured. Please keep your seat belts fastened at all times on flights, even when the seat belt sign is off. If you have to leave your seat, make it as quick as possible. I've been through a similar incident: turbulence can be unexpected and quite severe.

Technorati Tags: airliner, ntsb, travel, turbulence, typo

Posted at 06:02PM Jun 02, 2008 by tgardner in Travel  |  Comments[0]

TripIt.COM

I was turned on to TripIt by MarkD. This is a very interesting - and useful - site to which you can email your travel plans to and have them interpreted and turned in a nice display on the website. Also, there are ways to webDAV your info. Most awesome. Email me at terry [at] sun.com if you want to connect and keep abreast of travel schedules.

Technorati Tags: tools, travel, website

Posted at 03:35PM May 23, 2008 by tgardner in Travel  |  Comments[1]

Delta seat power, trans-continental vs trans-Atlantic

It is astonishing that the trans-Atlantic 767 (Atlanta-Paris, 8 hours) had no in-seat power in coach, and the little dinky trans-continental 737 (Atlanta-San Jose, CA, 5 hours) did have in-seat power. Or maybe I am not astonished, just puzzled.

It is also noteworthy that seatguru.com was incorrect when I checked. Delta was also incorrect: I called before the trans-Atlantic flight and the Delta CSR confirmed that the 767 had in-seat power in coach. But that was not the case.

Technorati Tags: 767, airlines, delta, 737, travel

Posted at 12:30PM May 22, 2008 by tgardner in Travel  |  Comments[0]

METAR decoded

A metar is an weather observation, coded into an approved aviation weather report format, used by pilots and weather dudes.

A raw metar record: KATL 182052Z 28012G19KT 10SM BKN050 BKN070 BKN250 23/12 A2969

Decoded, this means:
KATL Atlanta Hartsfield International Airport.
182052Z 18th of month, 2052 means 52 minutes after 8 pm (2000) in Greenwich, England (Zulu).
28012G19KT Wind is blowing at 12 knots (nautical miles per hour) from 280 (10 degrees north of west) with gusts to 19 knots.
10SM ten statute miles visibility
BKN050 broken clouds at 5000 feet
BKN070 broken clouds at 7000 feet
BKN250 broken clouds at 25000 feet
23/12 temperature 23, dewpoint 12
A2969 altimeter setting 29.69

All in all, three layers of broken cloud, good visibility (typical in this upcoming stormy weather to have good visibility), a trifle windy for us private pilots, but baby stuff to the guys with the big iron, and a slightly low altimeter setting. The 280 wind direction might be confusing. In this case, look to the west, the wind will be hitting you in the face at 12 knots, gusting to 19 knots.

A crude encoding method, but effective. The XML would be much larger :)

<observation>
<location>
<station>KATL</station>
</location>
<time>
<timezone>0</timezone>
<dayOfMonth>18</dayOfMonth>
<hour>20</hour>
<minute>52</minute>
</time>
<!-- and so forth -->
</observation>

Technorati Tags: airlines, aviation, metar, wx

Posted at 06:17PM May 18, 2008 by tgardner in Travel  |  Comments[0]

Airport security

Call me a dreamer, but there would have to be a better way to do airport security, especially at ATL. Isn't this just basic I/O through the streams modules? What happens at the IP perimeter? Is the PUTQ always filled?

Those who follow me on twitter are probably saying, "I saw your tweets, it took you 10 minutes, what are you complaining about?" The answer is, I am not complaining. Inefficiency just makes the hair on my neck stand up, no matter the context. After years of tuning, benchmarking, and tweaking, it just breaks my heart to see blatant performance problems.

Technorati Tags: airlines, security, travel

Posted at 05:44PM May 18, 2008 by tgardner in Travel  |  Comments[0]

Links 18-MAY-2008

• tripit - outstanding travel site
• openSolaris - Solaris!
• Firefox on Solaris
• flightaware
• Pandora - Music Genome Project

Technorati Tags: links, music, opensolaris, solaris, travel

Posted at 10:16AM May 18, 2008 by tgardner in Travel  |  Comments[0]

Clear finally coming to ATL?

I have learned that after months years of fits and starts and various bogosity, Hartsfield-Jackson International airport (ATL) in Atlanta has recommended to the City that Clear be awarded a contract to implement Clear at the airport. However, the City Council must approve said recommendation before work can begin.

Technorati Tags: bogodynamics, clear, security, travel

Posted at 08:09AM May 17, 2008 by tgardner in Travel  |  Comments[0]

A step closer for Delta and Northwest?

Technorati Tags: airlines, travel

Posted at 11:21AM May 14, 2008 by tgardner in Travel  |  Comments[0]

tripkick

Surf over to TripKick. Interesting take on an old idea: hotel reviews online.

Technorati Tags: travel

Posted at 12:54PM May 13, 2008 by tgardner in Travel  |  Comments[0]

Somerset, NJ

I have arrived for my first visit to Somerset, NJ. In all my travels, I have never been to this part of New Jersey, so I am looking forward to the visit. Getting here was straightforward, especially with the GPS guiding me along the way, and I was amazed to not have to pay a toll on the GSP.

Technorati Tags: travel

Posted at 06:01AM May 12, 2008 by tgardner in Travel  |  Comments[0]